Recent reports of the demise of the compact disc feature elegies tinged with funereal nostalgia for what was once a bold, new and literally shiny technology. Those might as well have been elegies for all physical media including the CD’s video packaged-media analogues: DVD and Blu-ray. Neither of which is quite ready for a final burial but with advancements in streaming services and cloud storage, they now seem anachronistic.
The rise, peak, decline and fall of the CD follows the predictable circle of the physical format’s life, which is generally generational—20-40 years in all, but a few unusual cases.
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About Stewart Wolpin
I have been writing about consumer electronics for four decades, including news, reviews, analysis and history for a wide variety of consumer, niche and trade outlets. For the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), I annually update the industry's history and write the official biographies of the CTA Hall of Fame inductees. Aside from writing about consumer technology for a variety of consumer, tech and trade publications, I write a blog and do market research for Digital Technology Consulting. In the non-tech world, I have written "Bums No More: The Championship Season of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers" and "The Rules of Neighborhood Poker According to Hoyle." Check out my work at www.stewartwolpin.com.